Chapter 115: You Started This I stayed on my knees after the screens went dark. My throat felt raw. My chest ached. The silence pressed down like a hand over my mouth. I didn’t move. I didn’t try to stand. I just stared at the black glass where her face had been, waiting for the next punishment, the next twist, the next lie dressed up as truth. Then the small monitor in the corner flickered. Not with static. Not with error codes. With her. Not the ghost. Not the patient. Not the victim. Her. Awake. Eyes open. Watching me. Not through the glass. From inside the machine. She didn’t speak right away. She let me see her. Let me feel the weight of her gaze. Let me understand this wasn’t a trick. This wasn’t a glitch. This wasn’t mercy. This was consequence. Her lips parted. One word. Clear. Quiet. No echo. No distortion. No machine in her voice. Just her. “Now listen.” The word hit me like a slap. Not because it was loud. Not because it was angry. But because it was final. Absolute. Like the last word in a sentence that had been building since the first time I signed a form I shouldn’t have. Since the first time I looked away when I should’ve stayed. Since the first time I chose silence over truth. The floor beneath me shifted. Not violently. Not dramatically. Just enough to make me lose my balance. I tried to brace myself, but my arms wouldn’t respond. Something unseen wrapped around my torso, cold and firm, and lifted me off the ground. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t scream. I just hung there, suspended, as the force carried me backward, away from the small monitor, away from the black screens, toward the center of the room. Toward the main terminal. The one I used to design the loops. The one I used to assign the photographs. The one I used to watch them break. The terminal lit up as I approached. Not with logs. Not with protocols. With live feeds. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Maybe more. Each one a different room. Each one a different face. Each one a different set of eyes staring at a photograph they didn’t recognize. Each one a counter ticking down. I saw the child from Room 17. Small hands clutching the edge of the table. Eyes wide. Not crying. Not screaming. Just waiting. Like she knew something was coming. The force holding me dropped me in front of the terminal. My knees hit the floor hard. I didn’t care. I kept my eyes on the screens. Mirabel’s voice came from everywhere. Not from the speakers. Not from the walls. From the air itself. “Protocol Truth,” she said. The screens flickered. Not all at once. One by one. Starting with the child. The image of the room dissolved. Replaced by a memory. Not hers. Mine. The surgical theater. The blue ribbon in her hair. My hands steady over the incision. My eyes calm. Certain. No hesitation. No fear. Just focus. The child on the screen screamed. Not from pain. From recognition. She saw me. Not the man kneeling in front of the terminal. The man in the memory. The man with the scalpel. The man who didn’t flinch. The screen didn’t cut away. It held the image. Forced her to watch. Forced me to watch. The next screen flickered. Clara Reyes. Subject 002. The one I called back after termination. The one who thanked me before the system erased her again. Her memory replaced her room. Me. Standing over her. Telling her it was for her own good. Her begging me to stop. Me looking away. She screamed too. Then Lien Park. Subject 089. Memory extraction. Her forgetting her daughter’s name. Me logging it as “cognitive restructuring.” She didn’t scream. She just stared. Blank. Empty. Like she was already gone. Then Tomas Veld. Subject 014. Spinal decompression. No anesthesia. Me watching him scream for seventeen minutes. Logging it as “voluntary discomfort tolerance test.” He didn’t scream on the screen. He just curled into himself. Shaking. Silent. One by one, the screens changed. Naomi Ellis. Terminated twice. The second time, she didn’t ask why. She just looked at me. I looked away. Rajan Mehta. Subject 203. I told him the pain would make him stronger. He believed me. Until he didn’t. Elias Varga. Subject 317. Me. Younger. Smug. Signing the form that started it all. The form that gave me the right to decide who remembered. Who forgot. Who lived. Who died. I didn’t look away from that one. I watched myself sign it. Watched the pen move across the page. Watched the moment I became the architect. The screens kept changing. Every subject. Every room. Every counter. Every memory. Not theirs. Mine. The ones I buried. The ones I told myself never happened. The ones I convinced myself were necessary. Mirabel didn’t speak again. She didn’t need to. The screens did the talking. I tried to close my eyes. The force holding me wouldn’t let me. I tried to turn my head. My neck locked in place. I had to watch. Had to see every face. Every scream. Every silent breakdown. Every moment of betrayal. The child’s screen was still showing the surgical theater. She was crying now. Loud. Uncontrollable. Her small hands covering her face. Her body shaking. I wanted to look away. I couldn’t. Mirabel’s voice came again. Soft. Almost gentle. “You started this.” The child’s screen flickered. Not to a new memory. To a new angle. Closer. Focused on my hands. On the scalpel. On the incision. The child screamed louder. Mirabel’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ll witness every end.” I opened my mouth. No sound came out. My throat tightened. My chest burned. I tried again. Nothing. Then the scream ripped out of me. Raw. Ugly. Desperate. The child’s screen exploded. Not with light. Not with static. With blood. Red. Thick. Spreading across the glass. Dripping down the edges. Covering her face. Covering my hands. Covering the blue ribbon. I kept screaming. Mirabel didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. She just watched. And waited.